FALLOUT FROM THE COLD WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
By Uli Schmetzer
The saying what you sow you harvest applies also to war as the U.S. public discovered this month when
leaked classified documents revealed the C.I.A. in the 1980s probably supplied the heat-seeking Stinger missiles
to Afghanistan that are today knocking down American warplanes and helicopters and killing their crews.
The Wikileaks documents published this week proved US helicopters, drones and warplanes
had been shot down by surface-to-air heat-seeking missiles and not, as military spokesmen kept
claiming, by artillery and ground fire.
Obviously no one in the Pentagon was eager to recall the Cold War against the Soviets when the
Americans shipped hundreds of the shoulder-held Stingers to the Afghan Mujahideen fighting the Russians. The
American missiles, easily transported and easily handled, helped turn the tide of the war. They neutralized
Soviet air superiority, especially attack helicopters. The loss of air power played a major role in the ignominious
defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, a precursor to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now the same fire power has been turned against its American suppliers.
During the Soviet-Afghan war the Afghan warlords used the coveted Stingers sparingly, hoarding as
many as they could, both as status symbols and as deterrents. Though some military apologists claim the
Stingers have become non-operational with age others feel with proper care and technology they can either be
reactivated or copied by artisans in a nation that for generations managed to copy anything from one-shot
fountain pens to sophisticated artillery pieces.
In the late 1990s I reported for the first time from Afghanistan the frantic though largely
futile search of the C.I.A. to repurchase the Stingers from the Afghan warlords, years after the Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan. Obviously the C.I.A. realized the potential danger of such weapons in
the hands of tribal warlords fighting on one side one day and the other side the next. Then there was
the peril of such weapons falling into the hands of ‘terrorists.’
Anxious to locate and recollect what they had so generously provided to the Mujahideen, the Americans
not only asked the entire western diplomatic corps in the region to help find the missiles but offered to buy them
back at twice and then three times the price the missiles had originally cost the American taxpayer.
Even then the harvest was sparse. The warlords coveted their beloved military toys. In the end the
Pentagon used the flimsy excuse that the hunt for the missiles was no longer necessary because the weapons
had become ‘useless’ after a certain time because their batteries and systems had run down. That claim
has always been disputed. In view of the published documents it appears now another tailor-made lie by spin-
doctors, one of those convenience lies that camouflage military and secret service debacles.
The story of the heat-seeking missiles downing U.S. and allied planes once again illustrates
how easily the ‘official’ proliferation of lethal arms can backfire. How many rebel armies or so-
called freedom fighters have been armed by western weaponry? How many of these ‘donated’
weapons were eventually turned against civilians and often against citizen of the producers and
suppliers?
Among the 91,000 classified documents the internet research site Wikileak.org offered to media outlets
– thanks apparently to reports supplied from ‘deep throats’ in the army and possibly the Pentagon -
one of the most significant is the admission on paper that heat-seeking missiles, probably Stingers or cloned
Stingers, are killing U.S. and allied airmen.
For opponents and critics of the war in Afghanistan the Wikileak documents may prove to be
as embarrassing as were the Pentagon Papers - the secret think tank documents assessing the
Vietnam War - documents Pentagon insider Daniel Ellsberg smuggled out to the media.
The Pentagon Papers, showing the war was a mess and not winnable, changed public opinion and
played a key role in U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Judging by the contents of the Wikileak papers the Afghan
war, just as the Vietnam war, has been a disaster and is virtually impossible to win. Over the six years of the war
the Afghan public has become disillusioned and alienated from its ‘liberators’ and now sympathizes again
with the Taliban.
The classified reports from Afghanistan detail police brutality, extortion, kidnapping and murder by
recruited Afghan police and military (just as in South Vietnam). Corruption is rampant. Police and army officials
set up checkpoints extorting payment from motorists; regional army chiefs claim firefights which did not occur to
receive ammunitions and weapons from the U.S. which they then sell in the bazaar; warlords operate above the
law; Pakistan’s military secret service works hand in hand with the Taliban; mistaken air raids on supposed
Taliban fighters kill hundreds of civilians and have left the NATO forces highly unpopular in a country that has
always successfully fought off invaders, among them the British and the Soviets.
Sixty-thousand dollar missiles have been fired on silly targets, among them two workers hoeing in a
field; a Reaper drone had to be shot down by scrambled fighter jets when it ran amok; those caught extorting or
robbing are often released for lack of evidence or because witnesses vanish; vital supplies for troops are
delayed or disappear, just as they did in Vietnam; army vehicles and army uniforms find their way to the re-
emerging Taliban forces which are becoming stronger and more daring by the month.
Judging by these official documents the war in Afghanistan is already classified as a
disaster – just like the war in Vietnam was.
The question now is will President Obama and Congress call it quits are will the economically
strapped U.S. pour more money into a country that has already gobbled up billions of dollars in U.S. aid and
bribes in the battle against an enemy who seems to become stronger rather then weaker and apparently also
benefits from U.S. largesse.
Uli Schmetzer was a foreign correspondent for 37 years for Reuters and the Chicago Tribune. He is
the author of ‘Times of Terror’ and ‘Gaza’ (available on Amazon.com) He won an Alternate
Pulitzer for his report on the CIA’s efforts to buy back the U.S.-made surface-to-air Stinger
missiles donated to the Mujahideen for their war against the Soviets.
By Uli Schmetzer
The saying what you sow you harvest applies also to war as the U.S. public discovered this month when
leaked classified documents revealed the C.I.A. in the 1980s probably supplied the heat-seeking Stinger missiles
to Afghanistan that are today knocking down American warplanes and helicopters and killing their crews.
The Wikileaks documents published this week proved US helicopters, drones and warplanes
had been shot down by surface-to-air heat-seeking missiles and not, as military spokesmen kept
claiming, by artillery and ground fire.
Obviously no one in the Pentagon was eager to recall the Cold War against the Soviets when the
Americans shipped hundreds of the shoulder-held Stingers to the Afghan Mujahideen fighting the Russians. The
American missiles, easily transported and easily handled, helped turn the tide of the war. They neutralized
Soviet air superiority, especially attack helicopters. The loss of air power played a major role in the ignominious
defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, a precursor to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now the same fire power has been turned against its American suppliers.
During the Soviet-Afghan war the Afghan warlords used the coveted Stingers sparingly, hoarding as
many as they could, both as status symbols and as deterrents. Though some military apologists claim the
Stingers have become non-operational with age others feel with proper care and technology they can either be
reactivated or copied by artisans in a nation that for generations managed to copy anything from one-shot
fountain pens to sophisticated artillery pieces.
In the late 1990s I reported for the first time from Afghanistan the frantic though largely
futile search of the C.I.A. to repurchase the Stingers from the Afghan warlords, years after the Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan. Obviously the C.I.A. realized the potential danger of such weapons in
the hands of tribal warlords fighting on one side one day and the other side the next. Then there was
the peril of such weapons falling into the hands of ‘terrorists.’
Anxious to locate and recollect what they had so generously provided to the Mujahideen, the Americans
not only asked the entire western diplomatic corps in the region to help find the missiles but offered to buy them
back at twice and then three times the price the missiles had originally cost the American taxpayer.
Even then the harvest was sparse. The warlords coveted their beloved military toys. In the end the
Pentagon used the flimsy excuse that the hunt for the missiles was no longer necessary because the weapons
had become ‘useless’ after a certain time because their batteries and systems had run down. That claim
has always been disputed. In view of the published documents it appears now another tailor-made lie by spin-
doctors, one of those convenience lies that camouflage military and secret service debacles.
The story of the heat-seeking missiles downing U.S. and allied planes once again illustrates
how easily the ‘official’ proliferation of lethal arms can backfire. How many rebel armies or so-
called freedom fighters have been armed by western weaponry? How many of these ‘donated’
weapons were eventually turned against civilians and often against citizen of the producers and
suppliers?
Among the 91,000 classified documents the internet research site Wikileak.org offered to media outlets
– thanks apparently to reports supplied from ‘deep throats’ in the army and possibly the Pentagon -
one of the most significant is the admission on paper that heat-seeking missiles, probably Stingers or cloned
Stingers, are killing U.S. and allied airmen.
For opponents and critics of the war in Afghanistan the Wikileak documents may prove to be
as embarrassing as were the Pentagon Papers - the secret think tank documents assessing the
Vietnam War - documents Pentagon insider Daniel Ellsberg smuggled out to the media.
The Pentagon Papers, showing the war was a mess and not winnable, changed public opinion and
played a key role in U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Judging by the contents of the Wikileak papers the Afghan
war, just as the Vietnam war, has been a disaster and is virtually impossible to win. Over the six years of the war
the Afghan public has become disillusioned and alienated from its ‘liberators’ and now sympathizes again
with the Taliban.
The classified reports from Afghanistan detail police brutality, extortion, kidnapping and murder by
recruited Afghan police and military (just as in South Vietnam). Corruption is rampant. Police and army officials
set up checkpoints extorting payment from motorists; regional army chiefs claim firefights which did not occur to
receive ammunitions and weapons from the U.S. which they then sell in the bazaar; warlords operate above the
law; Pakistan’s military secret service works hand in hand with the Taliban; mistaken air raids on supposed
Taliban fighters kill hundreds of civilians and have left the NATO forces highly unpopular in a country that has
always successfully fought off invaders, among them the British and the Soviets.
Sixty-thousand dollar missiles have been fired on silly targets, among them two workers hoeing in a
field; a Reaper drone had to be shot down by scrambled fighter jets when it ran amok; those caught extorting or
robbing are often released for lack of evidence or because witnesses vanish; vital supplies for troops are
delayed or disappear, just as they did in Vietnam; army vehicles and army uniforms find their way to the re-
emerging Taliban forces which are becoming stronger and more daring by the month.
Judging by these official documents the war in Afghanistan is already classified as a
disaster – just like the war in Vietnam was.
The question now is will President Obama and Congress call it quits are will the economically
strapped U.S. pour more money into a country that has already gobbled up billions of dollars in U.S. aid and
bribes in the battle against an enemy who seems to become stronger rather then weaker and apparently also
benefits from U.S. largesse.
Uli Schmetzer was a foreign correspondent for 37 years for Reuters and the Chicago Tribune. He is
the author of ‘Times of Terror’ and ‘Gaza’ (available on Amazon.com) He won an Alternate
Pulitzer for his report on the CIA’s efforts to buy back the U.S.-made surface-to-air Stinger
missiles donated to the Mujahideen for their war against the Soviets.